Missile Defense Staff Warned to Stop Surfing Porn Sites

Aug. 2 (Bloomberg) -- The Pentagon’s Missile Defense Agency
warned its employees and contractors last week to stop using
their government computers to surf the Internet for pornographic
sites, according to the agency’s executive director.

In a one-page memo, Executive Director John James Jr. wrote
that in recent months government employees and contractors were
detected “engaging in inappropriate use of the MDA network.”

“Specifically, there have been instances of employees and
contractors accessing websites, or transmitting messages,
containing pornographic or sexually explicit images,” James
wrote in the July 27 memo obtained by Bloomberg News.

“These actions are not only unprofessional, they reflect
time taken away from designated duties, are in clear violation
of federal and DoD and regulations, consume network resources
and can compromise the security of the network though the
introduction of malware or malicious code,” he wrote.

Individuals identified as violating the rules face referral
for “appropriate” disciplinary action, he wrote. They put
“their security clearances in jeopardy, and are subject to
suspension and removal from federal service or MDA sponsored
contracts.”

Agency spokesman Rick Lehner said in an e-mail that the
memo was written in response to “a few people downloading
material from some websites that were known to have had virus
and malware issues.”

Monitoring System

“MDA has more than 8,000 employees, and less than a half-dozen were found to have accessed restricted sites or downloaded
inappropriate materials,” Lehner said. “MDA has a highly-advanced monitoring system to detect intrusions, access to
inappropriate websites, viruses and malware downloads, and it
worked as designed, and there was never any compromise of the
MDA computer network.”

A government cybersecurity specialist, who spoke on the
condition of anonymity because such work is classified, said
that many pornographic websites are infected and criminals and
foreign intelligence services such as Russia’s use them to gain
access to and harvest data from government and corporate
computer networks.

“There are great dangers in interacting with any site that
has high-quality imagery, whether it’s pornographic or not, or a
lot of links,” said Chase Cunningham, chief of cyber analytics
at Sterling, Virginia-based Decisive Analytics Corporation, in a
telephone interview yesterday.

Using what is called steganography, Cunningham said, a
programmer can embed malicious computer code that infects
computers, opens ports, steals data or gains access to networks
when photos, videos or other files are downloaded.

Missile Defense

The Missile Defense Agency is responsible for developing,
fielding and upgrading the nation’s ground- and sea-based
missile defense programs, working with Japan and Israel, among
other nations. Its top contractors are Chicago-based Boeing Co.;
Lockheed Martin Corp., based in Bethesda, Maryland; Raytheon Co.
of Waltham, Massachusetts; Falls Church, Virgina-based Northrop
Grumman Corp.; and Orbital Sciences Corp. of Dulles, Virginia.
The Pentagon is seeking $7.7 billion for the agency in fiscal
2013.

The Pentagon inspector general criticized the agency’s
director, U.S. Army Lieutenant General Patrick O’Reilly, for
abusive behavior toward subordinates in a May 2 report.

“Witnesses testified that O’Reilly’s leadership style
resulted in a command climate of fear and low morale,” the
inspector general found. The report was on the inspector
general’s website.

Disciplinary Action

In his memo, James reminded employees that the agency’s
“network systems are subject to monitoring at all times.
Inappropriate usage will be detected and reported to supervisors
for appropriate disciplinary action.”

“The seriousness of the potential breach to operations
cannot be overstated,” James wrote. “Contracting officers will
coordinate action through contractor management when contractor
personnel engage in inappropriate usage.”

Lehner denied the memo was intended to intimidate agency
employees from reading the IG report.